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If you are involved in a business, forget about profits and focus on business karma. You don’t have to be Indian to understand how important karma is. Of course you need to be in a profitable business and yes you need to look at margins. But, don’t spend 100% of your analytical hours focusing on that. Focus instead on being helpful. What’s important is how helpful you are to others.

Do you create good biz karma?
Do you get your work done on time and correctly? Do you communicate adequately with clients when something needs to be told to them or do you keep them in the dark? Do you offer free tips out of the goodness of your heart? Do you give a little extra?

Karma in the directory business
I am in the directory business and during the last year I have had a conflict of interest that has caused me a lot of grief. As a directory owner, I want to make sure that the listings on my sites, particularly with high rankings on my sites are good quality listings. Can you imagine that you are a regular person looking for a service provider on a directory and find a horrible service provider? That will influence your decision to use that directory again. It is better to use good directories that give you consistent good results.

My tough choice
Unfortunately, the choice I had to make was between pleasing those who used my directory to look for services, and those who paid me to advertise their services. I decided that if the absolute worst service providers on my directory didn’t login regularly to their listing (which was required in writing) that I would remove them. On the one hand, they would not get what they paid for from their point of view. But, on the other hand, my policies page allows me to remove them for failure to login, so legally they were not being cheated out of what they paid for — they were cheating me and themselves. But still I wondered about the karmic effect of removing so many listings for failure to login.

The realities of business karma
It took a few months for me to find out what the real effects of my actions were. I had no idea what it would be, but I knew that the universe would respond somehow or another. Since I had removed people prematurely based on technicalities in my rules, and didn’t inform them, I noticed that many services that I had paid for were removed from me after I had paid for them. No huge disaster happened. But, I was paying for an old server which I had been told was cancelled. I paid for fixing my email system on my site which broke two months after it was fixed at great cost. My assistant stopped doing certain phone calls which I had assumed she was still doing. So, I learned my lesson. Half of the problem was not giving people what they karmically deserved regardless of the terms of my contract. The other problem was not telling them.

The solution
So now, I am telling all customers who did no login that they better login or they will be removed — unless they are the bottom 3% in which case they are so horrible, that I would rather sacrifice my karma in order to have them off my site. In life sometimes doing the right thing involves a sacrifice or two, and I know the price I’ll have to pay as well. So, I am warning clients, and giving them a few days to login. If they do not, then I’ll remove them. Now the ball is in their court. We’ll see if the karmic effect is better. But, my site continues to get excellent traffic and great revenue, so I am not too disappointed with my little karmic experience.

What goes on in your business?
Are you doing little secretive or unpleasant things to others that you should not? There is a karmic effect for this. They only way to find out what it might be is to stop doing whatever you’re doing and see what changes in terms of how other people or organizations treat you! I encourage you to find out and learn!

Many middle-class people insist that their home is an investment, or perhaps their best investment. Indian ladies insist that their husband buy a house for security. The truth is that your home does not make payments to you every month, and might not even go up in value, making it not an investment.

To become financially stable, you need assets that produce revenue.
Stable stocks that pay dividends, investment properties that make systematic profits, and businesses are good investments. Of course your business requires your time and effort and does not guarantee exact income. But, supposedly you understand your business well, and that superior knowledge provides security to your investment that someone else who was a beginner wouldn’t have.

Your house goes up and down in value with the market.
If your neighborhood goes downhill, so does your house’s value. If your area becomes more affluent, so will your house value. Houses also need repairs. Your water heater, paint, roof, and other components of your house need to be fixed from time to time. In actuality, your house is a money drain. You will never become rich if you invest in a money drain. You need assets that produce income.

To preach to Hindustani ladies:
I’ll add that your life doesn’t become any more stable by your husband owning a house. If you put your life savings into a down payment on the house, and the house loses value, you just lost all of your equity. Where is your stability now? You would have been better off putting the money in a bank. Additionally, if your husband loses his job, you’ll have no way to continue the house payments. Stability is having superior work skills and having a certain amount of financial liquidity. If all of your funds are tied up in a hard to sell asset, you are actually in a lot of danger, and the myth of security might deceive you.

On the other hand, if you purchase a multi-unit building and rent out the other units, you might find that your cash flow is excellent. Sure, you might have to call the plumber a lot and deal with nitwits, but the cash will come in, and you’ll be happy assuming you pick decent tenants (and decent plumbers.)

Do you have a friend who is a scatterbrain? Is he constantly rushing around trying to get things done in a disorganized way? The human mind has tens of thousands of disorganized thoughts floating around every day and those thoughts can wreak chaos on your productivity and stress levels.

A person who has regulated thoughts can actually get more work done, prioritize better, be more punctual about the things that matter, and get through the day smoothly. Trademarks of a mentally organized person are a clean desk, a clean house, neat personal appearance, level emotional behavior, and clear communication. Of course in real life, it might not be so clear cut identifying a mentally regulated person, but they are likely to have some of the traits I just mentioned.

So, what is the secret of getting more done every day and getting higher quality work done? Taking time off. Taking a long walk in nature every day refreshes the body and mind and delivers precious oxygen where it is needed. Meditating once or more per day also calms the mind. Other people prefer Hatha Yoga or deep breathing which is also excellent for the mind. Trying to do too much is like trying to drive your car without having an oil change or having a pit stop to refuel and check your tire pressure. Down-time is as important as up-time, but not everybody realizes this. It is also important to have hobbies. Mind-stimulating hobbies can sometimes be the best. I play “Go” or “Wei-qi” which is a Chinese game of strategy. Playing that game activates my mind in ways that my other daily activities do not. Reading a variety of materials or studying a foreign language can also activate different parts of your brain. There needs to be diversity in your daily regime — it cannot be all work and no play or you will become completely out of balance and not function efficiently.